Lunchtime Insanity
by xcaits27
Summary: If only that small, white dog had not appeared, everything would have been fine...


**Disclaimer:** Everything belongs to JKR, I'm only borrowing for a while.

**AN:** This was written for the prompt "these chicken strippers are nice", with the mentioning of a wand - sawn-off table leg - small, fluffy, white dog - and an extraordinarily long and winding staircase. It is pure crack!fic and slight parody; this is not to be taken seriously in any way.

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It started off innocently enough. No one quite knew where the dog came from, only that it was suddenly running around the school disrupting everything. The seventh year NEWT potions class turned into a disaster zone when the dog managed to get up on the tables, spilling potions and ingredients left, right and center. The only up side to the ruination of an entire month's worth of work was watching Snape run about the room trying to hex the thing; he only succeeded in making it smaller, fluffier and whiter.

Harry, paranoid boy that he is, was sure the dog was somehow sent by Vold… – sorry, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named – in an attempt to infiltrate the school. As such, he constantly had his wand at the ready, in order to catch the little dog unawares, and hex it into oblivion. Hermione was not impressed, as she was an advocate for the rights of all creatures, including mysterious fluffy, white dogs. With Hermione angry at Harry for wanting to kill an innocent little dog, and Harry mad at Hermione for not seeing things his way, Ron was left in the middle, a position he wasn't used to, as it was usually him and Harry fighting, not Harry and Hermione!

But, things were still proceeding as normally as possible…until Thursday at lunch, four days after the small, white dog (whom some of the students had taken to calling Engelbert, for some strange reason) appeared. Hermione and Harry had mostly been ignoring each other, with Ron attempting to keep some form of peace. It would have been fine, too, if it wasn't for the fact that Engelbert chose lunch hour to start running around the Great Hall – right by the Gryffindor table, where Harry immediately stood up and fired off a spell.

"Diffindo!" he cried, the charm just missing Engelbert and hitting the left table leg of the Hufflepuff table.

"Harry James Potter!" Hermione yelled, jumping up from her seat and rushing to stand in front of him. "What do you think you are _doing_? Do you really think that You-Know-Who would send a _dog_ to infiltrate the school? It probably just escaped the transfiguration classroom during a class. Must you be so paranoid?"

"Yes Hermione, I must. It's how I stay alive. Well, that and dumb luck. Now, move out of the way so I can send the annoying little thing to puppy dog heaven."

"No Harry, I won't." Looking around, she reached down and grabbed the left Hufflepuff table leg and brandished it menacingly towards Harry.

"Hermione, that isn't even your wand, it's just a sawn-off table leg!"

"Well, yes, I know, but I left my wand sitting on the table and if I moved from in front of you, you'd curse poor little Engelbert."

"You're right, I would." And with that, Harry quickly pushed Hermione out of the way, and fired off another curse at Engelbert, who was cowering under the staff table.

All hell broke loose. With the staff occupied trying to get Engelbert to stop running around under their feet, Snape trying to get down to where Harry was standing, Hermione trying to bash Harry's head in with the table leg, and Ron trying to stuff as much lunch in his mouth as possible, everyone else took this as an opportunity to hex, curse, charm and tease those who had annoyed them lately. With all those spells mixing and combining, some very weird effects occurred, not the least of which was the sudden appearance of an extraordinarily long and winding staircase in the middle of the Great Hall (no one was quite sure which spells combined to form that one, but Dumbledore deemed it quite an impressive bit of magic and left it there. Since it happened to start right where the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables should have been, Dumbledore and the staff expanded the Great Hall and made a second level, to which the extraordinarily long and winding staircase reached. House tables were abandoned, and everyone could eat wherever they wished too).

Once the commotion died down, the students and the professors just took a minute to look around at the damage caused. Ron, bless his heart, summed it up quite well when he looked at the Slytherin table and said, in all seriousness, "well, at least these chicken strippers are nice." For it was true: there, on the Slytherin table, were four chickens in clothes, and they were slowing removing those clothes, stripping for the doves that were standing around watching. It couldn't be helped, the entire student body burst into laughter, while the professors just scowled (with the exception of Dumbledore, but he's always the exception), and began to clean up the spell damage. Suffice it to say, Engelbert managed to disappear in all the chaos, never to be seen again, and every student had to suffer through two weeks of detention with either Snape or Filch. Harry and Hermione went back to being friends, Ron continued to be Ron, and it was rumored that the Slytherins kept the chicken strippers around for amusement – or so it's said. Only the Slytherins know for sure, and they're not telling.


End file.
